Editorial
Articles
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Regional perspectives on remote teaching in Sweden
In rural parts of Sweden, there is a growing interest in remote teaching, i.e. synchronous teaching using ICT. The Swedish National Agency for Education views remote teaching as a way to meet teacher shortage. However, there is limited research on remote teaching as an educational form. The purpose of this...
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Digitalization and digital transformation in schools: a challenge to educational theory?
There is an apparent lack of theoretically robust definitions of digitalization and digital transformation in educational research. This article purposes to contribute to educational research and practice by understanding digitalization and digital transformation through educational theory. The approach to the research problem was first to theoretically define digitalization and digital...
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Redesigning distance courses to support social and teaching presence in adult and upper secondary education
This paper investigates how teachers in adult and upper secondary education promote social and teaching presence by redesigning their distance courses. Social and teaching presence is analysed through the Community of Inquiry model. The implications stem from an ongoing project in Sweden and Finland (2019–2021) called Digital learning environments -...
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Remote consultation between special educators and teachers in rural schools in Sweden
Rural schools in Sweden exist in sparsely populated areas. The schools face a number of challenges; financial, pedagogical, competence-related etc. Mostly special educational expertise is lacking, challenging the principle of equal access to educational support. Special educators placed in community centres have long distances to rural schools. One way of...
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Finnish upper secondary school students' experiences with online courses
During 2020, online education has become an alternative way of studying in primary and secondary education in situations in which ordinary contact teaching is not possible. In our study, we investigated upper secondary students’ experiences of virtual online courses in 2018–2019 using a questionnaire and open-ended questions. Students participated in...
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University studies in the adjacent tab: dimensions of students' agency and everyday life in the rural north of Finland
This paper focuses on the everyday life and agency of university students. The study aims to deepen the understanding of university students’ agency in the age of modern technology, especially in a rural context where studying mostly happens at home. Agency and everyday life are explored from a cultural-historical perspective....
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Challenges and opportunities in the education of students with immigrant background in Iceland
This paper reports findings from a qualitative study on how municipalities organise and structure the support for students with immigrant background. The study is part of a larger research project, Inclusive Societies, which aims to compare integration patterns of immigrants in Iceland in various municipalities across the country. The project’s...
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Technology-enabled professional learning in remote rural minority language classrooms
Participation in professional learning is a challenge for teachers in small remote rural schools, particularly those who teach in a minority language. Multiple factors isolate Gaelic Medium education teachers and make professional learning more difficult to participate in: remote rural location; language; pedagogical approaches; school size; and technological infrastructure. To...
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Discursive gaps as spaces for Sami educational self-governance: A Bernsteinian analysis of classification and framing
The current COVID-19 crisis has made digitally mediated education the centre of attention. Even before, in 2015, changes in the Swedish Educational Act opened up remote education within the compulsory school system, i.e. pupils aged 6–15. Remote, in this paper, signifies synchronous online education where students and teachers are separated...
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Schooling in a time of disruption: the impact of COVID-19 from the perspective of five New South Wales (Australia) secondary principals
This paper examines five principals’ insights into leading their schools in a disruptive time. The principals chosen for interview each lead a secondary school in regional New South Wales, Australia, that has been identified as educationally disadvantaged by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage algorithm. While...
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Online learning in a time of COVID disruption? The experiences of principals from New South Wales rural and disadvantaged primary schools
The New South Wales (Australia) school education response to the Covid-19 pandemic was based on the premise that children would learn from home or school through online learning. This study of the experiences of a group of rural New South Wales primary school principals challenges this premise. Rural schools in...
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"I had no idea what online lessons were": experiencing the lockdown as a student of a rural school
Although providing students with access to equal education is one of the priorities and challenges of schools in general, students in rural schools are more likely to have limited access to equal education in comparison with their peers in urban schools. When it comes to strategies to provide equal access...
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New-arrivals challenged by remote teaching: creating solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic
Ensuring access to equal education is more complex than adopting remote teaching approaches. International reactions to Covid-19 included closing physical schools and moving teaching online. This has created learning challenges for newly arrived refugees and immigrants, and teaching challenges for their teachers. On 18 March 2020, language teaching for post-compulsory...
Features
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Cross-school collaboration in the Finnish archipelago through Virtual Learning Environments
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Researching school practices with a complementary and symmetrical approach - the case of remote teaching in the rural north of Sweden
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Researching and developing remote teaching in mother tongue tuition
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Defying distance, ameliorating access: school education for remote Australian students
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Itinerant encounters beyond the metropolis: expanding sedentary perspectives on teaching through pop-up community classrooms